The Brutal Truth About AdWords, KPIs, Focus, and Success

What do AdWords, KPIs, Focus, and Success all have in common? They are core ingredients for how to make money using Google AdWords™. In our business, we meet a lot of great people who use Google to drive traffic to their website through AdWords.

So, you pay Google $1. What do you want in return? Just a click? Not really; you would rather have a click from a visitor who will spend money on your site. How about someone to Like your Facebook page, follow you on Twitter, register for your Newsletter, or spend over 1 minute on a product details page on your site. Yes please!

Here is the short version: You can have it all. The longer version: Which do you want more of?

As with most things in business, you have to prioritize what is most important to you. Those who can do that (which means saying NO to a lot of things) have a much bigger chance for success. Why? Because you are chasing ONE thing vs. MANY things. If you pick one thing to focus on (i.e. revenues or profits), chances are you will achieve more of that. At the same time you will get some of the other things (Followers and Likes), but prioritizing what is the most important to you and your business is a must!

In the brick and mortar world it was easier; the objective was to get someone into your store and have them spend money. Did this change in the online world? Not one bit. However, there is an endless line of people who will try to convince you that they are “influencing” people to get to your store (independent of whether they are buying or not) and who want you to pay them for their service. If you can measure it and you make money from what they do, pay them. If not, pay that portion to those who can!

The brilliant thing about using Google AdWords is that you can measure what you get in return; conversions, revenues, and/or profits. Which has more value to your company? Not conversions, likely, if you can measure revenues or profits. The bulk of advertisers are using conversions (CPA) as their measurement of success - their KPI. What if there was a better way? There is, and it has been around for years. Only a few have figured it out so far. Will you be next?

Are Revenues or Profits from your ad budget a better KPI? What does it mean for how you compete for the clicks that deliver? A KPI that matters will force you to figure it out, and figuring it out will make you focus. Focus leads to success.